5 Under 25

Tomorrow's Eleanor Wongs, Russell Hengs, Ovidia Yus and Desmond Sims are today's aspiring student playwrights. Today's young dramatists are therefore the future of
Singapore playwriting, if not Singapore theatre itself.

To secure a future for Singapore writing, TheatreWorks has always been at the forefront in the quest to identify and develop playwrights.

It is with this in mind that TheatreWorks pioneered the idea of a new writers' group very early on with the formation of the Writers' Laboratory in 1990. The "Lab", as it is now affectionately known, proved to be crucible for a new generation of then-budding writers. It led to the flowering of Singapore playwriting in the 1990s.

That this experiment counts Eleanor, Russell, Ovidia and Desmond among its first graduates speaks for its success. The Lab, now in its thirteenth year, continues today to nurture beginning dramatists. In the last two years, there has been a group of emerging writers in The Lab who, if they continue to apply themselves, and whom, if theatre companies put in the resources to support, bodes well for the coming decade if not longer.

In recent years, the effort to encourage promising talent extended beyond The Lab to two new initiatives: The Singapore Young Dramatists Award (SYDA) and the 24-Hour Playwriting Competition. The aim of the SYDA (which began life as the student category of the then Singapore Dramatists Award) is to reach out to an even younger pool of people. It has helped identify new stars such as Chong Tze Chien, who as a second-year theatre studies student under Dr K.K. Seet in the National University of Singapore in 1998, dazzled the judges with his entry Pan-Island Expressway. Tze Chien went on to establish his name with more works as Company Playwright of The Necessary Stage.

The 24-Hour Playwriting Competition, which has both open and student categories, hopes to throw up new writers who can meet the different demands of its "guerrilla writing" format. Here participants are ensconced in a venue such as a cruise ship or a furniture megastore for a day and asked to compose a play in response to stimuli given every few hours. Over the years, the event has proven itself as fun, yet serious, activity for the more literary among Singaporeans.

Winners of the SYDA and the 24-Hour have gone on to join the Writers' Lab.

The collection in this book brings together winning works of the SYDA and 24-Hour Youth category. As these scripts show, there is no dearth of talent among the young. All they need is some encouragement and a platform to express themselves. Now that they have made a
mark, TheatreWorks hopes that they continue with their writing and go on to become established and long-time playwrights.

This book serves not just to document their good efforts, but also as a resource for schools and drama companies who are looking beyond the standard texts.

It would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors. Most notable is the Singapore Press Holdings, which has been generously behind the Writers' Laboratory from its inception. We would also like to thank all judges past and present.

Our most grateful appreciation to Dr K.K. Seet, founder of the NUS Theatre Studies Programme, for his insightful analysis of the plays in this collection, interviews of the writers, and for editing the volume.

Tan Tarn How
Associate Artistic Director
TheatreWorks

(Source: 5 Under 25 Foreword)

Donated by the estate of Tim Nga.